A quarter of a century before the 1995 film Toy Story (see entry under 1990s—Film and Theater in volume 5) explored the hidden life of toys, a writer named Johnny Gruelle (1880–1938) wrote about the adventures of a pair of dolls and their toy friends and the lives they lived when "real" people were not looking. First created in 1918, Raggedy Ann and Andy are still loved by children everywhere.

Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. Archive Photos. Reproduced by permission.

Dolls made of rags were not uncommon in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when most toys were handmade and not manufactured. In the early 1900s, Gruelle's daughter Marcella had loved the little rag doll she named Raggedy Ann. Marcella died while still a child, and her grieving father began to write down stories about his daughter's favorite doll. Raggedy Ann and, later, her...